


we'll figure this out

by beckawrites



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (it's stiles' mom so ya'll saw that coming), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But Also!, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, brief mention of suicide re: motel california, its canon compliant up until a certain point, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:41:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18469186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckawrites/pseuds/beckawrites
Summary: scott, stiles, and heartbreak.





	we'll figure this out

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in 2014, when 3b was airing and the webMD search bar said, "can a werewolf bite cure frontotemporal dementia?"

_i. your hands will always be too small to catch all the hurt you want to heal_

they're almost eight years old, and scott goes to the hospital with stiles every single day, when he visits his mother. scott likes mrs. stilinski, she's nice and smells like flowers, even when hospitals don't.

at least, sometimes.

scott doesn't really know much about what's wrong with his friend's mom. he just knows that sometimes, mrs. stilinski has good days, where she's warm and bright and likes to give hugs. some days, though, she's the exact opposite, and even stiles is scared of her. (he won't admit to it, but scott knows his best friend well enough to see the quiet terror in his eyes.) those are the days that scott knows he needs to be there.

except, on the very worst day, he isn't there. no one is.

stiles doesn't come to school for three days. no one asks why, because everyone knows what happened. beacon hills is a relatively small town, things like the death of the sherrif’s wife don’t stay secret for very long.

scott is there for the funeral.

he doesn't pay much attention to people’s speeches, or to whatever it is anyone is saying. he spends most of his time wishing he could stand right next to stiles. he needs to be there for his best friend. but his mom holds him back, as if he's supposed to just let stiles cry his eyes out with his father all alone. eight year old boys should never be alone when they've lost their mothers. scott swears he's abandoning stiles in that moment, and it makes him sick to his stomach.

from there on, he swears that he will never leave his best friend alone. he'd sooner tear the universe apart at the seams.

_ii. monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. they live inside of us, and sometimes, they win._

they're sixteen now, and scott swears that they're living in one of those horror movies that he and stiles used to watch, the ones that would keep them up all night but they watched anyway. people die left and right, people that they care about. monsters are real; they're people and it's scarier than any story two teenage boys could ever come up with.

every facet of their lives has become haunted, and scott has been wishing every night for months that he’ll finally be at the end credits.

so when scott holds that road flare in his hand, the smell of smoke and gasoline wafting through his nose, so strong he might die just from fumes, none of this feels surprising.

"maybe i should be no one again," he says. or he thinks he does. he can't tell anymore. this body doesn't feel like his. it’s a stranger’s body now, a character in a movie.

he comes back into his body, however, to feel a weight on his chest at the sight of tears in stiles’ eyes. oh, god. he did that this time. it isn't his mother or a broken heart over a pretty redhead. this is scott’s fault. the sound of his heart breaking (no, 'breaking' is too simple a word - his heart feels like it's being shredded, demolished, burned to ashes in his chest) almost drowns out his best friend's words.

"you're someone. you're my best friend, okay? and i need you. scott, you're my brother, alright? so, if you are going to do this, you're just going to have to take me with you."

stiles' voice is thick, and scott doesn't even realize that somewhere between the first and last word of his best friend's declaration, stiles had stepped into the gasoline with him. and scott wants to yell at him, tell him to get out, because then they'll both die, and stiles has too much hope left to do something so stupid, and -

he can feel the flames from far away. so close, though, is the pressing weight of his best friend, saving his life. he will never be able to thank him enough for this.

_iii. i love you in the same way there's a chapel in the hospital_

they're still sixteen, but scott wonders how they aren't decades older; how they haven't died. they're either incredibly lucky, or the universe has a sick sense of humor. he isn't sure what scares him more.

but then he finds out what they're looking for in stiles, and he realizes, that's what scares him most:

"there's no cure."

he might lose stiles. his brother, his soul mate; someone who means everything to him; someone he loves. someone he _needs_.

"i'll do something," scott promises, and he hates that he has to even offer this to stiles, of all people. he hates that this feels like his only option right now, to keep his best friend alive. but scott will do anything in the entire world if it means keeping stiles alive. absolutely anything.

he remembers being eight, watching a tiny little stiles crying his eyes out, and feeling so helpless. he looks like that little boy again, scott thinks, seeming so small in that hospital gown, eyes big and hopeless, but holding so much age, so much pain, scott wonders how they were ever young at all.

not knowing what else to do, scott pulls stiles in for a hug, like if he didn't, his best friend would just disappear. he can feel stiles shaking, he can smell the boy’s fear and he knows there are tears that won't fall, and scott knows that no amount of wolfsbane could compare to this, to the way he feels like his entire body is going to cave into itself. this is real heartbreak: the idea of losing someone so deeply embedded into who he is, that his body would rather collapse than let the thought continue.

if something needs to be done to make sure that stiles stays alive, scott will do it. whatever it takes. if it means stiles gets to live, scott will tear the universe apart at the seams.

_iv. wearing thin down to the core_

they're older now - not by much, but time seems to be dragging so slowly that scott can't seem to tell how long it's really been since it all began, that one night in the woods. he doesn't care: the slower time goes, the more time he gets to spend with stiles.

it happens on a tuesday. scott won't ever forget it as long as he lives. it's a dreary tuesday, cold and bitter outside, and scott's at home because it's his turn to cook dinner. stiles is supposed to come over after his doctor's appointment. (he goes there a lot lately, and the smell of it always lingers on him. after a while, it stopped making scott sick to his stomach.)

scott’s in the middle of chopping an onion of all things when stiles comes in, and scott almost cries for real, because he can't stop thinking of all the promises they'd made, where they'd live together during college, and how they might not make it there anymore, and -

"scott, i don't want to die."

the knife falls from his hand and nothing else matters except the fact that stiles is crying and scott needs to do something about this. scott finally _can_.

"stiles, stiles, i can - i can help you. you just have to trust me.” his hand rubs up and down his best friend's back, trying to soothe, trying to keep it together. he doesn't think he can breathe until stiles takes in a giant gulp of air. granted, it’s choked and wet, but it’s more oxygen than he was getting a moment ago.

scott puts his hands on stiles' shoulders, as if to steady him. he knows it doesn’t work, but he’s been doing his best this long, and it’s gotten him this far.

stiles is shaking, tears still leaking from his eyes but he manages, voice broken in a way scott hasn’t heard it in a long time, "please. scott, please, i don't want to die. i need you to - _please_." and scott knows exactly what he's asking for. he'd promised this to him, but he needed stiles to choose this first. there wasn’t any way that this was going to happen if it wasn’t stiles’ choice.

when stiles gulps, swallowing against the lump in his throat as scott's eyes glow red, all scott does is reach for his best friend's hand. he lets him squeeze against the pain as scott's fangs sink into his forearm.

he's doing something.

_v. the bite is a gift_

scott paces for three hours while stiles sleeps. every so often he will lean over, sniff around just to make sure stiles still smells alive, is still warm and breathing. he’ll check on the bite under the bandage and just...make sure everything is okay. this has to work. stiles has to be okay.

the sun is coming up, and his mother walks through the door when stiles' eyes open.

they glow amber.

they’re almost seventeen years old and scott thinks he finally knows what peace feels like.


End file.
